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Sunday, July 24, 2011

So many new beginnings (like running! 3 miles today and yesterday) going on and also a bazillion deadlines. I've been lazy, partly because of the heat, which I get some relief from when I'm in bed directly in front of my big fan, but not when I'm anywhere else, and writing with my laptop across my legs while I'm lying down isn't the way I get my best work done. But sometimes sitting at a café isn't either.

In terms of blogging, well…I obviously get something out of it, but am also wary. I know that the road to not writing a word is to care what other people think, and I had this moment of "what have I done?" reading comments on a site I just submitted a very personal piece to (fingers crossed on that!). Really, though, it's my own internet tendencies that's made me wonder if I shouldn't do what I did back in, I think 2004, and delete this entire blog and start over. Part of me wants to, that's for sure. One the positive side, I've met amazing people, and I'm honored that anyone is reading at all.

On the other, well, there can be a disturbing passive-aggressive use of blogs, which I myself am fully culpable of, and the entire reason I'm feeling more wary and wondering if I should heed Adair Lara's advice and so many other writing teachers I've read about taking the time to craft your thoughts and your meaning rather than just regurgitating your day. I guess the bigger question is what the point of personal writing, for me, is. Is it sharing, and who is it sharing with? I'm aware that I could say "I ate eggs for breakfast" and someone might get offended by that, and when we get into more…personal territory, that issue is amplified. I know as a reader that things that have nothing to do with me can still manage to upend me and of course the obvious answer is not to read things that are bad for you but if only life were as simple as all of us acting perfectly all the time.

So, I don't know. I do want to write about birth control and the current fight for free reproductive health care, as well as my fitness and mental health care adventures as well as more frivolous topics like my ongoing quest for the perfect bag. And I probably will; I just don't know if this blog is the appropriate venue. 35 has been a very rocky year for me, starting pretty much right after I turned 35, full of chaos and bad choices and confusion. Good things, too, but those are the things that stick out and I'm trying to figure out how to go toward the rest of my life not making those same mistakes and trying to right as many of the wrongs I've brought upon myself as I can. I don't know if I can in all cases, and, frankly, feeling like I'm on a constant self-help quest is not always so fun, which is why I also went to a midnight screening Thursday night of Friends With Benefits and today saw Horrible Bosses and am gorging myself on books and am going to buy a Nook so I can read on the treadmill. I know that these changes I'm trying to implement are and were imperative and I had to get to a point where my life as it was was simply untenable. I just don't quite know how to be the new me just yet. Working on it.

Thank you for reading. I really do mean that. I was at a reading the other day and talking about a book (Amanda Cockrell's excellent PTSD/divorce/war/religion YA novel What We Keep Is Not Always What Will Stay, which I highly, highly recommend, my review is here) and the woman I was talking to said, "Oh, I read your blog, I'll see it if you blog about it." Which was flattering but also reminded me that, well, uh, people are reading. And sometimes knowing that actually unnerves me to such a large degree I don't know how to handle it. I guess for me it's easier to write and pretend nobody's reading. That's not my end goal as a writer, but sometimes it's a little too much reality for me.

Even though I may morph this blog into something new (all photos perhaps? or a book blog? and then what platform to use?) and am feeling like I need more structured blogging, like with my cupcake blog, where there are clear boundaries, I'll see how it goes. Right now I'm grateful for every sentence I get out that goes where I want it to. Lately finishing any single pieces has felt impossible and I think it's because I've been operating from this place of fear: fear of what other people will think about me, fear of what I will find if I attempt to write the truth. I'm trying to go past that place and simply do it anyway, as the Courtney Martin book says.

1 Comments:

I have been reading this blog for over six years and your other one since I found out about it a couple of years ago when you thought you might be stopping this one. I have both of them in my RSS. Mostly because I just like to see every day that you are here, and I want to see what you have to say about yourself.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if most, if not all, of your regular readers just want to know that you are still here. You are more to us than just a writer we like to read.